Good news for tourism in 2002. According to Ministry of Tourism, the tourism sector grew by approximately 20% last year with more than 800,000 foreigners visiting the country who spent $350 million. The average amount spent per tourist also went up from $530 in 2001 to $750 in 2002. The government is projecting that by 2005 more than 1 million tourists will arrive per year.

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Did you know that Mexicans drink more Coca-Cola than any other country in the world? Mexicans drink an average of 462 eight-ounce bottles per year per person. In the U.S., consumption is 419 bottles per year. Did you also know that in 2001 Hondurans slugged down 384 million bottles of beer, 91 million bottles of aguardiente (literally ‘firewater’) and 38 million bottles of various liquors? All this in a country with a population of only 6.5 million.

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Talk about vacation time. Did you know that the French receive 58 days of vacation per year in all, not including weekends? In addition French workers averaged fewer hours per week than most other developed nations. The French have a mandatory 35-hour workweek and the work an average of only 29.5 hours per week. South Korea tops out the list with workers averaging a belt busting 47.1 hours per week, U.S. workers put in on average 35 hours per week.

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One key to providing tourists with a pleasant, informative and enjoyable stay is the ability of the country to field a sufficient number of front line tourism sector employees who can communicate in English. In Honduras, most private schools are bilingual and their students do in fact speak English. However, private schools in Honduras are only for those who can afford it and most families cannot. In addition, most employees who deal directly with tourists are not from wealthy families; thus chances are that they have not received English instruction in school. One strategy to change this is to require all students whether they are in private or public schools to learn English, which is exactly what Panama is going to implement shortly. The Panamanian Legislature just passed a law that now requires all primary and secondary schools both public and private to teach English.

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In recent years the maquila clothing assembly sector has become the largest industry in Honduras with over 100,000 workers centered in and around San Pedro Sula, assembling clothing for export to the US. In a country like Honduras with virtually no heavy industry and a miniscule light industrial sector - maquila jobs are highly sought after - especially by young women who make up the vast majority of maquila sector employees. However Honduras’ gain is the United States’ loss. In the past two years the U.S. has lost 2 million factory jobs. Manufacturing employment in the U.S. is now 16.5 million, which is the lowest level in 40 years. One prime consideration for employers is wages. The recent closing of a. Maytag refrigerator plant in Galesburg, Illinois is a good example. The plant, which employs 1,600, paid an average wage of $15.14 an hour, the new plant in Reynosa, Mexico will pay wages around $2 per hour.

 

Finca Los Abuelos; exemplary rural tourism

By IXCHEL GRANADA

SAN ISIDRO, CHOLUTECA — Among the hills of northern Choluteca, the Southernmost department of Honduras, sits the small village of San Isidro. A short two-hour drive down Honduras’s southern highway from Tegucigalpa will bring you to the turn-off to the village.

San Isidro has a population of about 6,000. Four kilometers past the main village of San Isidro is located an even smaller settlement, El Rincon. Just beyond the last boulder lies the hanging stick bridge, which crosses a beautiful clear mountain stream and leads to the farm “Los Abuelos”.

Finca Los Abuelos still teems with wildlife. Along all trails, bird watchers will be thrilled with large groups of parakeets, and hummingbirds. A lucky visitor might catch a band of toucans or parrots.

Fifteen cows serve as an integral part of the farm, providing varieties of lactose products unique to Central America. The cows provide an example of the type of integrated organic agriculture that the center’s owner, Abel Ortíz, is trying to promote. Abel teaches farmers, through demonstration plots, that native grasses rejuvenate naturally and more nutritiously without burning, that leaving trees in grazing lands help to fertilize soil and host wildlife.

The Farm was converted to a sustainable and organic agriculture training center about two years ago. Twenty years ago, the owners stopped burning and clear-cutting the land, began to reforest with fruit and lumber trees in designated areas with the idea to promote sustainable agriculture and sustainable tourism.

Sustainable agriculture workshops are taught to groups and use the following outline: Basic course of sustainable agriculture; propagation of plants and agro-forestry; and integrated pest management and integrated use of domestic farm animals.

The workshops bring participants to the farm for a length of stay between 4-6 days, and include a visit to a local farmer who is practicing the new techniques.

Los Abuelos hosts a variety of ecosystems one of which includes tropical dry forest which contains the second largest biodiversity reserves in the world, tropical rainforests being the first. Although many are aware of the tropical rainforests and their deforestation rates, few know about the diversity found in tropical dry forests and that it is the most endangered ecosystem on Earth. In Central America, primary tropical dry forest is almost extinct. Only Costa Rica has a National Park, which contains a protected area of primary tropical dry forest; Honduras is the only other country that has the opportunity to protect a rapidly disappearing area of primary tropical dry forest in its southeastern corner, in the Montana De La Botija.

If interested in learning more about Los Abuelos visit www.cch.hn or contact Abel Ortiz at 504 225 1902